The exposure of ClimateGate and the impending failure of the Copenhagen climate summit have the global warming community on the ropes. And to add insult to their injury, Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., has taken his one-man truth squad to Copenhagen, to continue to underscore just how absurd the idea of anthropogenic global warming is.
That has drawn the ire of the left, which knows it's losing momentum here and abroad as the Copenhagen summit is nearing the end. And that has enticed two prominent left-wing heroes, MSNBC "Countdown" host Keith Olbermann and Comedy Central's "The Daily Show" host Jon Stewart to taking on Inhofe.
On Olbermann's Dec. 14 broadcast, he awarded Inhofe the second-place prize in his "Worst Persons in the World" segment, based on Inhofe disputing the so-called "warmest decade on record" talking point that is a favorite of global warming alarmists and is based on narrowly interpreted climate data.
"The silver to Sen. James Inhofe, the senator from the oil business," Olbermann said. "When even Fox ‘Noise' has to break it to you that the World Meteorological Organization has found this decade as the warmest on record, you would know you were in trouble. Not the ‘Hofer.' ‘It means very little because that was based on the same flawed science, the IPC[C] science that we've been looking at.'"
And this ClimateGate stuff - it's much ado about nothing in Olbermann's mind. Based on his narrow account of the scandal, global warming is going to be a pressing issue no matter what the circumstances or evidence to the contrary.
"What he means by that is the stolen e-mails he's been looking at," Olbermann said. "More bad news on that front for the ‘Hofer.' The Associated Press had five reporters and seven scientists, including experts on the ethics of research, analyze the 1 million words in the 1,073 hacked e-mails that supposedly constitute ClimateGate. They concluded that they stonewalled skeptics and discussed hiding data, but the messages don't support claims that the science of global warming was faked."
If Olbermann had actually gone to the original Associated Press article, instead of relying on some left-wing interpretation of the article, he would see that the AP found some problems with the practices at the University of East Anglia, "an influential source of climate science."
"One of the most disturbing elements suggests an effort to avoid sharing scientific data with critics skeptical of global warming. It is not clear if any data was destroyed; two U.S. researchers denied it," Seth Borenstein, Raphael Satter and Malcolm Ritter wrote for the AP on Dec. 12. "The e-mails show that several mainstream scientists repeatedly suggested keeping their research materials away from opponents who sought it under American and British public records law. It raises a science ethics question because free access to data is important so others can repeat experiments as part of the scientific method. The University of East Anglia is investigating the blocking of information requests."
But despite those criticisms and questions about Borenstein's cozy association with the global warming alarmism community, where there is documented proof he showed his hand to one side before the other, Olbermann had the gall to make a whopper of a claim about the AP.
